As much of a specter as its subject, Biography of a Phantom came from an odyssey that began in the late 1960s when
the late folklorist Robert “Mack” McCormick set out to solve Robert Johnson’s
1938 death.
McCormick
tracked down enough of the Mississippi blues legend’s living friends and
relatives to crack the case. But Mack succumbed to mental illness before
finishing the book, which has been a subject of intense interest and
controversy ever since.
Eight
years after McCormick’s death, the book finally came out in 2023. I find it a moving
but deeply sad cautionary tale about the ownership of stories and legends --
and lines that should not be crossed.
The drama of In Cold Blood meets the stylings of a Coen brothers film in this long-lost manuscript from musicologist Robert “Mack” McCormick, whose research on blues icon Robert Johnson's mysterious life and death became as much of a myth as the musician himself
"This is a human and humane book, an insightful exploration of the biographer’s craft. [...] McCormick’s book makes you feel what we lost when Johnson died young." —New York Times
"Reads like noir fiction. It's a detective story riddled with fatalism and ambiguity carried out by someone who, like the archetypal noir hero, isn't a detective…
Her Country abounds with villains,
none worse than country radio, an industry that has done everything possible
to keep its airwaves safe for white males and no one else.
Undeterred,
country women have still done the most interesting work in the field over the
past few decades. The rest of the world is catching on, too, as witnessed by Her Country cover model Kacey Musgraves’ half-dozen Grammys (including 2019
Album Of The Year).
I
admire the way that Nashville journalist Marissa R. Moss pulls no punches in
this deeply reported account from the front lines of the struggle.
In country music, the men might dominate the radio waves. But it’s women—like Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton, and Kacey Musgraves—who are making history.
This is the full and unbridled story of the past twenty years of country music seen through the lens of these trailblazers’ careers—their paths to stardom and their battles against a deeply embedded boys’ club, as well as their efforts to transform the genre into a more inclusive place—as told by award-winning Nashville journalist Marissa R. Moss.
For the women of country music, 1999 was an entirely different universe—a brief blip in time, when women like Shania…
“War is hell” is a phrase heard often
enough that’s now a bloodless abstraction you think but never feel. This epic
World War II novel by the Pulitzer-winning columnist does not let readers off
so easily.
The
book’s title refers to humanity and sense of self, serving up graphic
descriptions of the sort of brutality usually described in politely neutered
legalese. But not here. And it does the same with Jim Crow-era lynchings in the
American South, connecting everything as part of the human race’s ongoing
struggle.
The
best “difficult” read I’ve encountered in years.
Could you find the courage to do what's right in a world on fire?
Pulitzer-winning journalist and bestselling novelist (Freeman) Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s new historical page-turner is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States.
An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman's life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese . . . a young black woman, widowed by the same events…
A remarkable label, Rounder Records’ story
goes back to the 1960s, a decade the three college students who founded it
spent vagabonding around the country going to folk festivals.
They would
encounter worthy artists who had never recorded, but the big
record companies weren’t interested. So they started Rounder in 1970 to do it
themselves, an odyssey in which they put out more than 3,000 albums – more than
one a week for 50-plus years.
While they were a specialty niche label, Rounder
had some improbable commercial successes, striking gold and platinum with
blues-rocker George Thorogood and bluegrass-queen-turned-pop-star Alison
Krauss. Rounder also eventually expanded into almost every genre imaginable,
from college radio alternative rock to reggae, helping to create the big-tent
format known as Americana.
